


The News That's Fit to Print

by 2ndA



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:25:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2ndA/pseuds/2ndA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CJ does her job</p>
            </blockquote>





	The News That's Fit to Print

_I am somehow less concerned with the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain  
than I am with the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweat shops._

 

The question comes at the end of a briefing that’s already run too long, from Marsh Blume of the _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_ :  “CJ, is the White House planning to comply with the _Azan_ request for information about the President’s recent visit to the Ephod dig?”

It takes a moment for CJ to realize what he’s asking—way to miss _every single one_ of the major issues, Marsh—but after a briefing that’s been mostly “no comment at this time,” it’s nice to be able to tell him that the matter has already been dealt with.

“ _Azan_ —a local paper in Israel’s Negev Administrative Region,  for anyone playing along at home—requested _photos,_ Marsh, so don’t make it sound  like we’re hiding eighteen and a half minutes of something. And the Press Office has been more than happy to comply. The President continues to applaud the efforts of American, Israeli, and Arab archaeologists working together toward greater understanding of a critical period in Middle Eastern civilization. They’re nice little snaps,” she adds, gathering her notes off the podium, “full-color, suitable for framing, if anyone is interested in a souvenir of that memorable trip…”

The press corps groans obligingly: everyone remembers standing around in the dust and sun of the broiling Ephod Valley while the President asked just one more question and quizzed folks on their knowledge of near-Eastern folkways.  Even Lee Cascaverde, _Times-Picayune_ , who swears there’s no heat like bayou heat, had wilted by the end.

* * *

“We _did_ send _Azan_ their pictures, right?” CJ asks as Carol hands her message slips on their way back from the briefing room.

“Yup.  Sent a second set over this morning.”

“What was wrong with the first set?”

Carol shrugs. “Something editorial?  You’ll have to ask the archives people.”

“They’re pictures, not pizzas!  You can’t just order what you like,” CJ snaps, organizing the messages from _absolutely imperative_ to merely _very, very urgent_.

“Like I said—ask archives. All I got was the confirmation email.  Which reminds me, NBC wants to trade camera positions with…”

* * *

CJ _does_ put a call through to the archives, mostly ‘cause she’s on hold at State and Marsh can be a stubborn bugger when he thinks he’s on to something.

The intern who answers is quick to pull up the correspondence related to the _Azan_ request:  “Yes, ma’am, we sent over the standard set—a close-up and two group shots—two days ago, and then sent a replacement set this morning.”

“What was wrong with the original set?”        

“Uh, just let me scroll down here…”  CJ can hear him tapping away at a keyboard, and then there’s a long silent pause. “Oh. Hmm.”

“Oh, what?”

“There’s, uhm—when you send a request, you have to fill in this little box that specifies what you’re looking for…It makes things easier for the computer searches ‘cause you can just type in—”

“Why _oh_?”  CJ interrupts.

“It is not the policy of _Azan_ to publish pictures of women.”

“ _What?”_

“It’s just—that’s what the request says.  _The initial photographs are unacceptable; it is not the policy of_ Azan _to publish pictures of women_.”

* * *

C.J. bangs the phone into the cradle, hanging up on the poor intern.  She’s halfway to Toby’s office before she realizes she’s also just severed her waiting line to the State Department.  That does not improve her temper.

She nearly runs over Josh in the hallway.  The Deputy Chief of Staff is late for a meeting on the Hill; instead of looking where he is going, he’s trying to put on his overcoat, finish his coffee, scan a brief, and dictate to Donna at the same time. 

“The _Azan_ newspaper,” she stops him, “will not publish pictures of women!”

“No pictures of women,” he repeats.

“None,” CJ confirms.

“Well, cancel _my_ subscription!”  he declares, and usually Josh playing dumb can cheer her up, but this time she is not in the mood. 

“Have you tried _Playboy_?” he calls after her as she stalks down the hall, “I hear they kind of specialize in pictures of women.”

“You are not funny, Joshua,” she calls back, without turning around.  “Not even a little bit.” 

Toby is on the phone, reading three separate briefing books simultaneously, and arguing with whomever is unfortunate enough to be on the other end of the line.  CJ grabs a packet of post-it notes.

AZAN _refuses_ , she writes and sticks the yellow square in front of Toby. On the next square, a green one, she continues: _To publish pictures_   Blue square: _Of archaeologists during pres visit._ Pink square: _B/c do not publish pictures._ Yellow square again: _Of women!! _

The penstroke on the second exclamation point tears the post-it note.  CJ surveys her multi-colored handiwork, then jots another note _(newspaper from Israel)_ and inserts it between the yellow and green squares, so Toby has at least some idea of what she’s talking about.

Toby reads his way across the scattered notes.  “I’m not saying it’s unconstitutional.  I’m saying it’s _stupid_.  The _Supreme Court_ will be the one saying it’s unconstitutional.”  CJ agrees, although she’s pretty sure the Supreme Court can’t rule on Israeli publications.  Then she realizes that he is still talking to the person on the phone.  Toby holds out his hand for the post-it notes. 

_Common policy_ , he writes, _for some conserv. Jewish + Orthodox_ _publications.  Protects  women’s modesty._   _Needless to say,_ he continues on another square, because even on post-its, Toby’s sentences have transitions and topic sentences, _usu. editors = men_.

“That’s outrageous,” CJ snaps, forgetting that she’s not supposed to talk.  “What can we do?”

He gestures at the phone, makes a face, and hands over the post-it pad: _Not much_ , he’s written on the top square.  “Cooper doesn’t have the votes for that,” he’s saying as she leaves, “and if he doesn’t know that yet, he’s the only one.”

CJ balls up the last post-it and goes next door to consult with Sam—darling, diligent Sam who takes a few notes on a nearby legal pad.  He calls her back in two hours to apologetically explain that, as he suspected, the American president's press secretary doesn’t actually have any authority over what is published in local Israeli newspapers. 

* * *

“I put a stop on the second set of pictures,” Josh says sheepishly when he stops by CJ’s office at the end of the day. “Reasons of national security.  You can have the archives send over a third set in the morning.” CJ suspects Donna made him come by to apologize for teasing her earlier in the day.  That was eight hours and several crises ago: then she was fuming.  Now she’s just tired. 

“That won’t change anything.  They’ll just refuse anything _they_ think might erode their reader’s delicate moral sensibilities.”  OK, so maybe she’s still fuming a little bit.  News outlets serve many masters, and CJ is well aware that not all of their objectives are honorable  or even-handed.  In fact, she’s used that leeway frequently to her own ends.  But cutting an entire group out of the picture—literally?  She’s used to press maneuvers that are a little more subtle than _that_.  

She glances through the proofs Josh hands her: lots of rock-strewn ground, sand, the President posing with clusters of archaeologists, a few journalists caught at the edge of the frame. “If you are a girl—hell, if you’re a _boy—_ growing up in the circulation region for this newspaper, you might not even know that women _become_ archaeologists.  Or journalists.” 

“I’m…sorry?”  Josh sounds apprehensive, but he does look really downcast—like he wishes he had something better to say.  CJ suspects he’s spent some of the afternoon trying to solve her problem for her.  And if the best he can do is recalling the second set of pictures…then there really must not _be_ a solution.

“I know,”  she says, and flaps the folder of proofs, “thanks for this.”

 It’s a big world, she reminds herself once Josh has left, and there are lots of viewpoints.  Anyone who doesn’t like _Azan_ can try Al Jazeera or the _New York Times_ or CNN, not that _they_ are without bias.  Don’t throw rocks if you live in a glass house.  Or maybe—do.  Throw as many rocks as you can get your hands on, because you can see very clearly from inside a glass house.  And because otherwise you will find yourself living in a glass prison.

* * *

CJ doesn’t have time to gather the proof sheets off her desk when Carol announces that Lee Cascaverde is here, because Lee enters like a Gulf Coast hurricane in a muumuu.

“I heard about the _Azan_ pictures,” she announces.  CJ doesn’t even bother to ask how: Lee joined the White House Press Corps after nearly two decades covering Dixie politics in the deep South: other people's 'highly-placed sources' are her 'unattributed reports'.  Seated, CJ _does_ have to crane her neck to look up at the _Times-Picayune_ correspondent.  Lee is often almost as tall as CJ herself, by virtue of her towering heels.  She is well-known among the press corps, too, for her library of hats, including several exotic turbans that push her height over seven feet.  Today, she is wearing a cloche in LSU colors that match her perfect manicure.

“We are addressing the _Azan_ matter,” CJ says neutrally, because that’s what you say when a reporter brings up a topic, especially if that reporter has a notoriously big mouth.  Lee is many things: subtle is not one of them. 

“I was named after my mother’s father,” Lee says, suddenly, dropping into the visitors’ chair opposite CJ’s desk. “Who didn’t throw her out of the house when she came home eighteen and pregnant in 1962.  And I’ve always liked my name: _Leonetta_.  It’s unique.   It’s classy.  And I,” she announces, “am a unique and classy lady.”  She pauses and looks at CJ as if daring the press secretary to say otherwise.  “But  I’ve always insisted that my byline read _Lee_ Cascaverde, ever since my first article in the high school paper.  Because when I was growing up in West Feliciana Parish, there was still a women’s page in every major newspaper and _that’s_ where your stories went if you had a name like Leonetta.  They were good sections, the women’s pages,” Lee concedes, “well-edited.  Smart writers, some of them.  Nice layouts. But those were not the kind of stories I wanted to write.”

Again, she gives CJ that stern look, then leans over to look at the proof pages spread across the desk.  Meanwhile, CJ is pretty sure her mouth is hanging open.  She’s never known Lee Cascaverde to say that much on any topic that wasn’t a House appropriations bill or a new hairstyle.  She doesn’t know how to respond—not that Lee gives her a chance.

“It’s a shame,” Lee tsks.  “Without the women, you’ve just got pictures of rocks and dirt. No human interest.”  That’s not actually true: there are a few nice group shots that happen to be exclusively male, but Lee is not looking at those.  “Now this one, for instance.”  She taps one picture that shows an archaeologist pointing out some feature of the dig to the President and a few members of the press corps.  Lee herself is prominently positioned, although nearly unrecognizable, swathed as she is in a voluminous linen coat that she insisted protects her from the sun.   She is an androgynous cloud in a turban next to the President, identifiable only if you happen to look very, very closely and know that Leonetta Cascaverde favors outsized clothing.  “This,” she says decisively,” is a very nice picture.”

* * *

The _Azan_ editors apparently agree, because that picture appears as the chief illustration, front page, above the fold, of the region’s biggest story: the visit of the American president to the archaeological investigations at Ephod.  Of course, their choice may have been influenced by the fact that the other pictures they receive are empty landscape shots of the unpopulated desert.  Their cover picture is the only one that even shows the President, and he is nearly over-shadowed by a tall, turbaned man in white robes.  Most unfortunate, but they run the photo anyway, because it’s a big story and because, despite numerous phone calls and emails, they have recently had great difficulty getting a response from the Presidential press secretary’s office. 

**Author's Note:**

> Totally fictitious; while the newspaper photo policy referred to is true, there is no Azan newspaper. There is a Times-Picayune in Louisiana and a Post-Dispatch in Missouri, but neither of them have correspondents in the White House Press Corps. The epigraph is by Stephen Jay Gould.


End file.
